


Out of Curiosity (and nothing more)

by WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gay Panic, Internalized Homophobia? a lil?, Self-Discovery, Yagami sibling hijinks, through reading your sisters secret stash of BL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:20:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29380551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch/pseuds/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch
Summary: Light tried not to care; he really did. What did it matter what secret books his little sister bought? Most likely, they were just teen magazines about the latest celebrity gossip.But still, it ate at his mind.It struck Light as odd that she’d picked up such a fondness for reading recently. He should be grateful she’d picked up one of his better habits, but his curiosity just wouldn’t seem to die down...So, one Saturday, he waits for her to leave on her weekly book-buying trip before going to take a quick look around her room.---The one in which Light starts reading BL.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42





	1. Yagami Light is NOT a creep

**Author's Note:**

> This is a simple one folks! Light discovers some BL... and discovers he kind of likes it...

Light didn’t make a habit of digging through his sister’s belongings. 

He trusted Sayu enough to leave the girl to her own devices. That had been the case at least until his little sister had started toting shopping bags around like they were full of contraband. She’d tuck them furtively under her hoodies, stow them away the second she got home, and never let Light (or their parents for that matter) near whatever she went to the trouble of concealing.

Light could see from the little logo on the side of the plastic shopping bags that the packages were only from some book store, but whenever he asked what sort of books she’d bought, he was only met with the vaguest of answers. Sayu would then call him pushy and nosey for even having asked before scurrying upstairs and slamming her door.

Light tried not to care; he really did. What did it matter what secret books his little sister bought? Most likely, they were just teen magazines about the latest celebrity gossip. Absolute drivel and not the sort of thing Light needed to concern himself with.

But still, it ate at his mind. Every weekend she’d head out with a good chunk of her allowance and return home with bags of books.

It struck Light as odd that she’d picked up such a fondness for reading recently. He usually had to hound her to do any of her work for her humanities classes. He should be grateful she’d picked up one of his better habits, but his curiosity just wouldn’t seem to die down...

So, one Saturday, he waits for her to leave on her weekly book-buying trip before going to take a quick look around her room.

He promises himself that he’s not going to go upending furniture or rifling through drawers. If he finds something out in the open, he’ll take a quick look. If not? Well, it really isn’t his business anyway.

The floor creaks slightly underfoot as he closes the door to Sayu’s room behind him. The sound makes him feel like such an intruder, but his curiosity gets the better of him, and he begins his search.

The room hadn’t been repainted since Sayu was about six. The pastel purple walls with the butterfly decals stood unchanged over the years. It isn’t like Sayu keeps the place very tidy, but it’s clean enough that Light doesn’t have to move aside any piles of clothing in his investigations. 

He checks her bookshelves. They are suspiciously understocked. For the amount of money the girl has been spending, Light expected to find at least one full shelf, yet the shelves are filled only with a few textbooks and one of Light’s architecture books. He frowns. He didn’t remember lending it to her.

He checks her desk drawers and is only met with a few more books from school, a notebook with a purple sequin cover, and a few pens sculpted to look like kittens—all completely ordinary purchases that didn’t warrant her sneaking about.

He checks under her bed, nothing, under her pillows, nothing. And then it hits him, dresser. 

He crosses the room and tugs open the first of many drawers and, buried under socks (and a few training bras that Light does his absolute best not to touch), is a stack of books. Books with half-naked boys on the covers. Books with half-naked boys on the covers draping their thin arms around other half-naked boys. 

Light withdraws his hand as if burned. Heat rises to his face, and on pure instinct, he slams the drawer closed. The little dresser shakes, unfairly abused.

He’d heard girls were into this stuff… but Sayu? And where did she get these books anyway? Wasn’t there an age restriction?

Purely out of concern for his little sister, Light decides he has no choice but to take a closer look, at the covers at least, to see if they were rated R18. If so, it would be his duty as her big brother to figure out who, exactly, was buying Sayu all this nonsense.

Gingerly, he opens the drawer again and pulls out one of the novels. The cover is sleek and looks nothing like how Light would have imagined this book to look--aside from the boy on the cover, with his soft eyes and flushed skin. It lacks the hot pink, flowery, girly feel he’d expected. And no bright red R18 sticker…

Light pulls out another book, and then another. All of them sport surprisingly sleek cover designs. He picks one from the bunch. On the cover, two men in delicately painted watercolor hover mere centimeters from each other’s lips. Pastel blush spills over their cheeks. Their hands, with their thin fingers, are laced together. Light spends longer than he would willingly admit gazing at that picture, with it’s soft brush strokes carving the white space into the likeness of two boys fit to be idols.

Out of curiosity and nothing more, Light thumbs open the book.

First page, nothing terrible. It’s seemingly just an exceptionally well-drawn manga.

Light skims the first few pages, watches the protagonist go about a day at university. Not too different from Light’s future plans for himself. In fact, with the art’s quality and the simplicity of the first few pages, Light finds this protagonist quite relatable. 

And then, he turns to chapter two and gasps. He actually drops the book. It lands with a soft thud and a flutter of pages.

Sayu reads this stuff?! Well, then it was up to him to figure out just how bad this book got. He’s merely being responsible for Sayu’s well being.

With unsteady hands, Light kneels to pick up the book once more and flips back to where he left off.

Bodies intertwine in a way Light can’t be sure are meant to be pleasurable or painful. But there is one thing he is sure of, he can’t stop flipping the pages.

Swollen lips, flushed faces, sweat-damp skin. Image after image. Despite telling himself multiple times to just put the awful thing away, he keeps reading.

The protagonist, Seiji, is laid out, all long legs and quivering chest. The other boy (who’s introduction Light skipped) holds Seiji down, whispers the same sort of cheesy lines about wanting and needing that Light has always found so unbearable when spoken by the female leads of hit dramas. Something about this was… different. Light didn’t feel the same revulsion he usually did when his friends had all crowded around a computer to watch some JAV actress whisper sweet nothings to the camera. This feeling is more akin to an adrenaline rush. Light’s heart rate picks up, his breath comes quicker, a dull pulsing starts up in the pit of his stomach. 

And then Light remembers where he is and stands up so quickly he almost throws himself off balance. How awful would this look if his mom were to walk upstairs right now? Light, sitting on the floor of his sister’s room surrounded by her trashy stories. What would he say?

He slams the book shut and tucks it back into the draw with the others.

In a mix of fury and embarrassment, Light stalks out of the room and locks himself away in his own bedroom. He spends the rest of the evening burying himself in schoolwork, letting the dry equations fill his mind, waiting for his memories of those pictures to fade.

They don’t.

That night, as he drifts off, the images come back to him, and that same sweet pulse starts up again. Light does his best to ignore it, and it does subside eventually. Needless to say, Light does not sleep well that night.


	2. Yagami Light is NOT in a mood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Sayu on the phone with a friend*
> 
> Yeah! All of my books keep going missing!? And my brother is acting so WEIRD? which is odd, because... he's like mr. perfect you know? Like yesterday at dinner he didn't even tell me to turn of that drama I like. Yeah, the one with Hideki! I think Light was actually enjoying it?  
> He's so moody now, too! Not that he wasn't before but... I don't know, he's just acting all teenager-y?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this is fun because it's bringing up some of the funnier moments of when I was first figuring out I wasn't straight! But also... I'm reminded of my pre-teen angst/shame?  
> Ah, the good old days of swearing to never EVER look at something sexy in a book/ on the internet again... Look where that got me, haha!
> 
> Also, if you are returning to read this dumb little story, I love you. My whole heart for you, dear reader.

The following weekend he finds himself in the middle of Sayu’s room, again. He didn’t mean to go searching through her things again… but he’s been in a bit of a mood all week. Light is sure that if he could just get another look at one of those books, he’d be able to put an end to these feelings...

To his horror, Light finds that the feelings he is so desperate to shed only came back twofold-- in a crushing wave--as soon as he opens the book from last weekend.

Light sits on Sayu’s bedroom floor, flipping through the pages, watching the titular Seiji prostrate himself before Botan (Light had gone back to read his introduction). He didn’t care for the name, but his design... well, Light could understand why Seiji seemed so smitten. 

Each time Botan undresses Seiji and falls into bed with him, Light gasps with a mix of horror and pleasure at each new position, each unique depiction of the myriad ways one could touch another body. There are acts shown that both disgust and fascinate Light in equal measures. 

The first time Botan is shown lowering his face to Seiji’s exposed entrance, Light closes the book and paces about the room, blushing furiously, for a good two minutes before he goes back to finish the chapter. 

The third week he sneaks back into Sayu’s room to finish the last third of the story, Light struggles to convince himself that he’s still doing this out of an interest in Sayu’s safety.

The fourth week he snatches one of the books from its hiding place among pink socks and frilly camisoles and hides it between his mattress and bed frame. It’s not a perfect spot, but he isn’t planning on keeping it for long. Light simply… needs to continue his investigations in the comfort of his own room. Clearly, the stress of reading in Sayu’s room is what was having such an odd effect on him.

That Friday night, as Light sits down to dinner with his family, he is forced to contend with an unusually pouty Sayu.

“Was school alright?” Light asks as he helps his mother carry dishes from the kitchen. He sets down a bowl of noodles and leads over Sayu as he drops a napkin on her lap, “well?”

She sighs dramatically but doesn’t look away from the Tv as she speaks, “I’m missing something. It’s this book I like; I’ve been looking everywhere. It just disappeared.”

Light’s blood stills in his veins, and he nearly drops the utensils he’s holding, “a book?” he manages, hoping his voice is level enough.

“Yeah! I bet one of my friends took it or something. Hina was over studying with me the other day...” she shrugs, “wait, be quiet! Hideki Ryuga is on!” She shouts, and Light counts his blessings that Sayu is too focused on her favorite actor to notice Light’s guilty expression.

That night, once he’s positive the rest of his family has drifted off to sleep, he retrieves the book. In the solace of his own bed, he sprawls out and makes himself at home with his latest read.

When that saccharine twist in his gut starts up again, Light isn’t taken by surprise; rather, he acknowledges it, letting it grow and expand as his eyes roam the pages greedily. 

For a time, he does merely lay there, hands honestly employed flipping pages. That is until he finishes the volume and tucks it back under his mattress.

Light lays perfectly still for a while, staring blankly at the ceiling, reviewing his favorite panels in his mind’s eye. When that isn’t enough, Light flicks a tentative finger against one of his nipples as he had seen one of the boys in the novel do. The pleasure it sends trickling down to pool in his gut is shocking enough that Light gasps.

The feeling shocks him enough that Light immediately turns on his side, burying his face in a pillow. He promises to return the book as soon as he can safely get into Sayu’s room.

This throat feels dry, and so Light pulls himself out of the embrace of his blankets to head downstairs. Stepping as softly as he can, Light makes his way out of his room and down the small bit of hall before the stairwell. It’s dark, but luckily Sayu had quit leaving shoes around the house in her elementary school days.

Light hears something like a shout of frustration coming from the girl’s room. Speak of the devil.

He really should just go downstairs. He’s already found out far too much about Sayu’s personal life, and it has only caused him grief and confusion. 

He pads back up the hallway, coming to a stop at Sayu’s door. 

For the hell of it, he leans in, pressing his ear against the thin wood of the door. Sayu is on the phone, it seems, complaining (none too quietly) about her missing book. 

“If my mom found it? Or… or my Dad?! Oh god,” She whines. Her expression readily comes to mind. Light has gotten his fair share of looks at his little sister’s whining face.

“Stop! It’s not funny! I’ll be in so much trouble, they’ll kill me!” 

Light frowns… He knows it’s a raunchy manga… but the images are all of handsome boys. It’d only be normal for Sayu to want to look at that sort of thing. Sayu--a normal girl who wanted to look at pictures of boys--thought Light’s parents would kill her over that? 

Where did that leave him?

Suddenly, his eavesdropping loses it’s playful edge. God, has he turned into some kind of pervert overnight? Listening in on his sister’s phone calls, hiding pornographic manga in his mattress… Light was turning into one of those kids he once thought himself so above.

His dire need for a drink starts up again, his mouth dry. Turning on his heel, he starts back down the stairs. Just then, Sayu’s bedroom door opens with a soft click.

“Oh. Light?” 

He turns back to peer at her in the dark, biding his time until some inevitable accusation comes.

“Yeah, Sayu?”

“What are… Why are you up? Don’t you have cram school tomorrow?”

Light pauses, “I was just going to get a drink.”

“Oh, Light’s sneaking around at night! Acting all weird, like a real teenager!” she sing-songs as best she can in a whisper. She may be looking for any excuse to tease her older brother, but Sayu and Light are on the same side when it comes to not waking their parents.

“Go back to bed, Sayu. You shouldn’t be up so late, even if it’s Friday,” He sighs, exasperated and desperate now to get downstairs.

“You’re one to talk” she tosses over her shoulder before slipping back into her room.

Light makes quick work of grabbing a glass of water. To his annoyance, it doesn’t do much to settle his nerves. His mind drifts back constantly to Sayu’s complaints to her friend over the phone, “They’ll kill me.”

The words replay in his mind, on a loop constant enough that at some point in the small hours of the night, the thought becomes Light’s own.

The rest of the night, Light drifts in and out of fitful sleep. Each time he rises out of unconsciousness, breaching the surface of a roiling sea of restless dreams, the thoughts return.

“They’ll kill me, They’ll kill me, They’ll kill me.”

Light promises himself, as he lays under uncomfortably warm bedsheets, that he’ll never look at one of those books again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya,
> 
> It would be so cute of you to leave a comment :D


	3. Yagami Light is NOT repressing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Light Yagami, top scoring high school student in Japan, king of repression. Dumbest smart person I know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, this little fic has been my go to bit of 'fun' writing. Often, with death note fic, writing for two stubborn, bratty, reserved geniuses falling in love can be a bit taxing on a writer. This is.. clearly not that!

Light’s promise to himself lasts about a week. It’s a week he spends moody and frustrated and, despite the fact he really did stop looking at the manga, he still felt a crushing amount of guilt.

So, come Friday night, Light does what he always does when he needs to drown out any uncomfortable emotion. Study.

It’s a habit that’s proved effective in two ways; the first being that it is difficult to read Shakespeare in your non-native language and stew over your guilty conscience at the same time. The second use is that it only strengthens his image as the perfect son.

His eyes scan over the words on the page, he’s fluent enough that he hardly needs to check a dictionary, even with language native English speakers might struggle with. 

Light is already ahead with the reading. His English class had planned to devote the whole term to studying Hamlet, but Light is nearly halfway through the play three days into said term. 

His plan to smother out the memories of the pornographic pages of the manga are proceeding nicely, that is until Light’s mind wanders ever so slightly… Light finds himself considering Hamlet and Horatio. Without really meaning to, his mind concocts an image of the prince and his closest friend acting a bit more intimately than the text has stated.

His mind wanders, and wanders, and wanders. 

It isn’t until Light realizes he’s been reading the same page repeatedly without comprehending any of it that he gives up entirely and sets the book aside. He wants to throw it, but he’d rather not have his mom coming to knock at his door and asking if “everything is alright, dear.” 

It was pointless, wasn’t it? Now that he’d put those disgusting ideas into his head, he would never be free of them again. God, what was next? He’d become some fujoshi? Some freak who whiles away their days sitting in their darkened bedroom staring at their computer while the rest of society slowly forgets about them? 

With a groan of disgust and self-pity, Light pulls himself away from the desk and sits on the edge of his bed. 

What was wrong with him? Clearly, something was wrong with him.

Light lays back on his mattress, staring up at the white ceiling. It’s times like these Light wishes he had a little more decor in his room. All he has to take his mind off his newfound perversions are countless numbers of textbooks, some architecture books, and a pile of old novels his family had bought him. (when it came time for the holidays, Light always got one of two things. Books, because people knew he was intelligent, or money, because they didn’t know him at all.) He casts a quick look at the spines and finds nothing of interest. 

He considers playing a game; even if he isn’t overly fond of video games, they’d at least direct his attention elsewhere. He tosses around the idea of watching the news but concludes it’d probably just make him feel worse. The news never fails to remind Light just how terrible the world really is.

So he simply lays there, looking at the ceiling, going over his tumultuous feelings. The medley of guilt, shame, and more terrifying at all, desire, are more than enough to occupy his genius brain.

He supposes it’s only natural something so… divorced from the societally accepted life might fascinate him. Didn’t most boys his age, even the most intelligent and most respected one’s find themselves interested in sex? It was biology. Something clicks in Light’s mind. It seems so obvious he wants to smile at the relief.

He’s only so interested in these gay magazines because it’s the only real exposure to sex he’s had! Obviously, all the times Light felt no interest as his friends had huddled around an iPhone to watch some girl in a poorly done cosplay bare her breasts was simply because other people had been there! Of course, he didn’t like to think about sex with his friends around!

A calmness floods Light’s nerves. It’s so simple! All he has to do is buy himself a manga with a straight couple. Maybe Light just needed a compelling plot or interesting characters to really… enjoy things. He’d liked Seji because he was a student--a relatable protagonist. He’d liked reading about the boy attending classes, about his academic achievements. Really, when Light went over the memory of reading the novel, he’d been primarily drawn to the mundane aspects of the story anyway, right?

Now, his only concern was a simple one: where to get a manga with a girl? Judging by what Light knows of popular culture, It shouldn’t be too hard a task.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! If you're still sticking around for Light Yagami's adventures with BL Manga, thank you!!  
> I hope you all are having as much fun with this story as I am :)

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you had fun reading this one! This is a funny little story... and I have a chapter or two more planned!  
> If you liked it, let me know in the comments!


End file.
